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The lasting of the Mohicans : history of an American myth

Author: Martin Barker; Roger Sabin
Publisher: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, ©1995.
Series: Studies in popular culture (Jackson, Miss.)
Edition/Format:   Book : State or province government publication : English
Summary:
There are few people for whom the phrase "last of the Mohicans" does not conjure up memories and associations - childhood games, films, TV programs. Yet most who profess acquaintance with Cooper's title actually have never read his book. The characters - Hawkeye and his Mohican friends Chingachgook and Uncas - owe more to the media than to Cooper's text for their popularity.

But they have become familiar icons

Yet along with the appeal of frontier adventure these media adaptations bear the weight of powerful meanings. Each new version addresses these meanings differently and raises questions about wilderness and frontier, about western expansion, about the relationships between men and women, about the association of whites with "Indians.".

Why does this book that everyone knows but that few have read continue to be perennially attractive for the media? In answer to this question, this study throws a new light on the idea of frontier and on the meaning of the American Dream.  Read more...

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Details

Genre/Form: Adaptations cinématographiques et télévisées
Named Person: James Fenimore Cooper; James Fenimore Cooper; James Fenimore Cooper; James Fenimore Cooper; James Fenimore Cooper; James Fenimore Cooper
Material Type: Government publication, State or province government publication
Document Type: Book
All Authors / Contributors: Martin Barker; Roger Sabin
ISBN: 0878058583 9780878058587 0878058591 9780878058594
OCLC Number: 33246079
Description: x, 248 p. : ill. ; 24 cm.
Contents: The Mohican myth and the American dream --
Cooper's book --
Becoming a classic --
Movie Mohicans, 1909-1936 --
Movie Mohicans, 1947-1992 --
The television and cartoon versions --
Comic books: The Hidden tradition --
In the matter of the Mohicans.
Series Title: Studies in popular culture (Jackson, Miss.)
Responsibility: Martin Barker and Roger Sabin.

Abstract:

There are few people for whom the phrase "last of the Mohicans" does not conjure up memories and associations - childhood games, films, TV programs. Yet most who profess acquaintance with Cooper's title actually have never read his book. The characters - Hawkeye and his Mohican friends Chingachgook and Uncas - owe more to the media than to Cooper's text for their popularity.

But they have become familiar icons identified with the colonizing of the northeastern frontier and with the creation of "America." This ground-breaking and entertaining study focuses on the making and the remaking of media versions of Cooper's popular book. It shows that each new rendering extends to its audience a dynamic image of the American myth.

Yet along with the appeal of frontier adventure these media adaptations bear the weight of powerful meanings. Each new version addresses these meanings differently and raises questions about wilderness and frontier, about western expansion, about the relationships between men and women, about the association of whites with "Indians.".

Why does this book that everyone knows but that few have read continue to be perennially attractive for the media? In answer to this question, this study throws a new light on the idea of frontier and on the meaning of the American Dream.

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